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Advise is good, but the author says you should have 2 or less fonts and 3 or less colors. The picture he uses to show this: minimum 5 colors.
What secrets ? It feels like I'm reading the exact same design tips (alignment, fonts, colors) at least once per month on some blog linked from HN.
I hate to be that guy, but this isn't "Design Secrets For Engineers", it's "Design Secrets For Software Engineers." (or developers/UIX/etc). "Keep visual hierarchy in check" and "Use designer fonts" isn't very useful advice in designing an instrumented hammer... "Engineering," especially in the colloquial usage of the word, covers a lot areas that have things in common, but there are lots of things those areas don't…
Still, it's good you are. It's not a discussion board, people talking about tangential issues are (IMO) one of the best things you can see on HN.
Also, I tend to think that 'software engineering' is the least engineering-like of all engineering disciplines.
I never thought of using KeyNote to design a UI. I always thought designers use Photoshop or InDesign for that purpose. Is KeyNote used just for the ease of use, or is there some other requirement that the Adobe products don't measure up to?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate to be that guy Then don't be. It's posted on HN - the context makes it pretty obvious. If a computer could trivially work out it was likely to be about software engineering using Bayesian reasoning ("engineer" in title AND posted on HN) then a person should be able to as well.
Bayesian reasoning is actually "given the Prior X, what is the likelihood that Y is true" ? What you are referring to is the far more simplistic Boolean reasoning.
I should have stated it like this: given "engineer" in title AND posted on HN what is the likelihood that it refers to a Software Engineer.
I never thought of using KeyNote to design a UI. I always thought designers use Photoshop or InDesign for that purpose. Is KeyNote used just for the ease of use, or is there some other requirement that the Adobe products don't measure up to?
Keynote is really nice for mockups. It has more than capable drawing tools and the snapping is excellent. It's major benefit over a Photoshop or Illustrator would be its relative simplicity. With mockups that is a big factor. Less complexity in the tool can mean less opportunity to add complexity in your design.
I hate to be that guy, but this isn't "Design Secrets For Engineers", it's "Design Secrets For Software Engineers." (or developers/UIX/etc). "Keep visual hierarchy in check" and "Use designer fonts" isn't very useful advice in designing an instrumented hammer... "Engineering," especially in the colloquial usage of the word, covers a lot areas that have things in common, but there are lots of things those areas don't…
It should really be "Visual design secrets for software engineers." It's kinda irksome how graphic designers try to own the word "design." Design is a vital part of all engineering, software or otherwise.
I never thought of using KeyNote to design a UI. I always thought designers use Photoshop or InDesign for that purpose. Is KeyNote used just for the ease of use, or is there some other requirement that the Adobe products don't measure up to?
It would be harder to design in Photoshop, methinks, since when designing you're dealing with abstract shapes and lines (vector) not raw pixels (raster). I mean sometimes you do :) I created and prototyped this cool video-preview control entirely in Paint.NET, literally changing pixels to create gradients.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beware that designer fonts are expensive! Most people don't realize that fonts bundled with Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop might require a license for commercial use!
Just take a typekit account. For $50 a year, you get unlimited fonts on unlimited number of websites. There is an upper limit on traffic, but if you hit that number, you won't mind paying more.